By the time rain began and I got up to lower the north windows, at 3 o'clock, it had been thundering and lightninging for a longish time. I only closed the two on the right: if rain came in the two on the left it would fall on us in bed. Meanwhile we wanted the cool air, and it wasn't windy so the rain just dropped straight down.
The storm was far away, judging by the lapse between light and sound, but huge: the thunder was tremendously loud despite the distance, and each outburst was neither a simple clap nor even a roll but a seconds-long rumble. I am looking this up now, but my guess is that the higher the storm builds, the longer the path lightning travels from cloud to ground, thus the longer the thunder. But that doesn't make any sense, because the difference it takes lightning to go 20,000 versus 50,000 feet must be wee. But more distance would mean more gases to expand. So maybe not so nonsensical.
After the rain started, the sound and light show ceased or moved on, so I fell back asleep thinking it couldn't've rained very much. But the front garden is flattened and detritus marks the high-tide mark near overburdened storm drains.
I am so enjoying this summer.
It had not thundered all damn day but any public organization has to protect everyone from no chance at all, so the pool was closed for lap swim. A lifeguard was present nonetheless and she suggested one of the indoor pools.
Indoor pools in the summer? People are freaks, they really are.
I will figure this out.
I just used the Ohio Public Library's tree identifier finally to determine that the Other tree is a European mountain ash or rowan. I had no idea. Rowan sounds so sexy and romantic and this tree is orange: the bark has an orange tint and the fruit is orangey, in wee little clustered berries that, according to Ohio, birds eat. We call it the Other tree because we don't like it much. I thought, from my tree identification guidebook, that it was a sumac.
I have used the Ohio site before trying to establish a species of tree I love here, with such a scent. A couple were planted by a new housing development on my bike commute and I bet if I ever could find its architect or designer, they would know. In the meantime I'm going to go through the tree identifier name by name.
Okay, none of those. The closest I've found, the narrowleaf cottonwood, doesn't mention the tree's shoots. Like a quaking aspen or our cherry tree, whatever tree I'm after spreads with shoots; when I discovered that I realized that identifying it mattered less since I wouldn't plant it.